Testing the Kaltik Flat aggressive frames

While freestyle frames are everywhere, some of us are overwhelmed by a rush of nostalgia and go back to those good old flat set-ups (with all four wheels touching the ground). It is the case of Sno, who tested for us the Kaltik Flat aggressive frames…

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Test bench

Going back to a flat set-up, not feeling bumps on the ground anymore, not being blocked by a lost gravel, and not having to push much on my old legs to take curves, I had been dreaming for it for a long time! So when Bobor proposed to give me the Kaltik frame for testing, I jumped on the occasion, promising that the test would be done in a few days or a couple of weeks to the max. And hardly 12… months (shame on me) later, here it is at last, the test that you all (me at least) have been craving for…

Presentation

The first thing that catches your attention on those frames is the notch and its bulges, partly covering the two middle wheels. It is meant to prevent your wheels from touching when you slide, so that you don't block and -MIRACLE- it works. It's easy as ABC, efficient, truly marvelous, as good as a Dean Martin song. You get used to it so quickly that after a few hours you don't even think of your middle wheels anymore, you may start thinking that the frame is magic and that never again you will block like a piece of s***. Watch out though, sometimes those bloody wheels reappear… like when you change them for example. Forget them you should not, or bite the dust you will (being old and wise, speak like Master Yoday can I)…

With use

The frames being massive, without being really heavy, and quite high, the extra wheels are the only additional weight, which is for me largely offset by the gain of speed and comfort. in Top they're a delight, you stall easily, you can lean on them, it's so good that it makes you want to stay there forever (just like DriDri's sis').

Resistant, even if at first they seemed a bit soft to me, they may not have the fastest sliding in the world indeed, but they remain really enjoyable and very steady on walls, rails, copings and ramps.

In fact their only real flaw is their metal rockers and their axles, which are complete crap, badly designed, and poorly finished, always unscrewing by themself (that's fun, you skate and bam you lose one, a bit like kids' milk teeth except that there's no tooth fairy to slide a coin under your pillow. Crisis is everywhere, and skate fairies haven't been spared by it, no money, not a single little coin left, poor things…) you can't tighten them properly, which kind of ruins the whole thing. You may say that it's quite easy to fix if you have Salomon or Kizer axles… or anything, molded pieces of wood, tacks and pins, even a roll of duct tape would do better. It is quite disappointing for a frame that was pretty expensive when it first went out. It's a shame to do such cheese-paring economies…

Conclusion

Yet if like me you feel like having a go at (or going back to) flat set-ups without making a drastic switch to 80 mm freeskate wheels, I strongly advise you to go for Kaltik frames, except for their axles (unless they had the enlightenment of changing them in the meantime).